NASA develops Snack Bars for breakfast in Deep Space Missions

The space agency is struggling to deal with human waste during its manned missions.

But someday NASA might send an astronaut on a mission that calls for spending days at a time in a suit.

"The people who participate in projects write incredible quotes back to us about how this has been their dream to work as part of NASA, and even though it's a small part, this has just been fantastic", Rader said.

See, while the International Space Station has a pretty fancy toilet, an astronaut must wear a diaper during launch and landing activities or while spacewalking. NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough, the station's commander, is serving as Thanksgiving chef for the six-person crew.

Unlike the ISS, Orion will not be met with any ships to transport its waste.

Scientists are thus tackling the issue of food bars that are energy-dense and will provide a solid breakfast option for these astronauts who will dare to go into deep space.

To help reduce the amount of supplies on Orion, scientists are developing nutrition-packed food bars, between 700 and 800 calories each.

Care has been taken to ensure that the bars do not affect the morale of the crew since food matters a lot in long missions.

"We've taken a look at how to get some mass savings by reducing how we're packaging and stowing what the crew would eat for breakfast for early Orion flights with the crew", said Jessica Vos, deputy health and medical technical authority for Orion. However, food packs brought in space have caused certain concerns in the past.

At the moment when they're at the International Space Station they use a funnel device to urinate and a vacuum if they want to do a number two.

According to NASA, the Orion spacecraft will be "built to take humans farther than they've ever gone before", this includes eventual trips to Mars. Researchers also worry what would happen if a female astronaut gets her period in a spaceship. In a video posted to Vimeo, Astronaut Rick Mastracchio implores the public to help. And as a way to do this, scientists are now developing food bars for deep-space missions by Orion astronauts.

Now just imagine there's an emergency, and astronauts are stuck in their space suits for days at a time.

NASA will award upto $30,000 to the solutions it judges to be the most promising for implementation and use on missions in the next three or four years. But the crews of Orion will still need all their nutrition to keep them healthy and alert.